Anders Brievik: lonely computer-gamer on a killing spree
In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 69 teenagers in a socialist summer camp outside the Norwegian capital of Oslo, and eight…
What unites Churchill, Dali and T.S. Eliot? They all worshipped the Marx Brothers
Ian Thomson celebrates the anarchic genius of Groucho and his brothers
Bob Marley: from reggae icon to Marlboro Man of marijuana
From reggae icon to Marlboro Man of marijuana
Death wears bling: the glory of London’s Caribbean funerals
Death is big business in parts of the Caribbean. In the Jamaican capital of Kingston, funeral homes with their plastic…
The woman who invented the Italian resistance
Italo Calvino, the Italian arch-fabulist, wrote a foreword to this celebrated wartime diary when it appeared in Italy in 1956.…
Wave goodbye to the weight-gaining, drunk-driving Inspector Wallander
Some years ago I met the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he was…
The real Dad’s Army was no joke
Dad’s Army, the sitcom to end all sitcoms, portrayed the Home Guard as often doddery veterans. In one episode, Private…
Ten years and an earthquake: the changing face of Haiti
This summer, I returned to Haiti for the first time in ten years. I was itching to see how the…
Why I’m now scared of book clubs
Writing frankly about Jamaica has made me nervous of invitations from strangers. How would this one turn out?
Only tourists think of the Caribbean as a ‘paradise’
A couple of years ago in Jamaica, I met Errol Flynn’s former wife, the screen actress Patrice Wymore. Reportedly a…
The punk who inspired a generation of British woman to pick up a guitar
Viv Albertine is deservedly famous as the guitarist of the tumultuous, all-female English punk band The Slits. Their debut album,…
Narcotically-induced mischief in an urban wasteland
Fifteen minutes by rail from Paddington, Southall is a ‘Little India’ in the borough of Ealing. An ornate Hindu temple…
Exclamation marks, no; aertex shirts, yes!
Jonathan Meades, the architectural, food and cultural commentator, appears on television in a pair of retro shades and a trademark…
Jorge Luis Borges and his ‘bitch’
Ian Thomson on a miserable mismatch that became the talk of Buenos Aires in the Sixties
Gay Paree: food, feuds and phalluses – I mean, fallacies
In his preface to The Joy of Gay Sex (revised and expanded third edition), Edmund White praises the ‘kinkier’ aspects…
Was Flann O'Brien at his best when writing about drink? (Answers on a damp stressed envelope, please)
On his deathbed in Dublin in the spring of 1966, Flann O’Brien must have been squiffy from tots of Paddy.…
'She's the most important Jewish writer since Kafka!'
Ian Thomson on the turbulent life of Clarice Lispector
The many attempts to assassinate Trotsky
Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…
Carlos Acosta, the great dancer, should be a full-time novelist
Carlos Acosta, the greatest dancer of his generation, grew up in Havana as the youngest of 11 black children. Money…
Italo Calvino's essays, Collection of Sand, is a brainy delight
The Japanese are sometimes said to suffer from ‘outsider person shock’ (gaijin shokku) when travelling abroad. Recently in London we…
Stephen King isn't as scary as he used to be, but 'Doctor Sleep' is still a cracker
Though alcohol withdrawal is potentially fatal, booze has none of the media-confected glitz of heroin (imagine Will Self boasting of…
Mr Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo - review
In 1998, the Jamaican singer Bounty Killer released a single, ‘Can’t Believe Mi Eyes’, which expressed incredulity that men should…
An Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman - review
Vasily Grossman, a Ukranian-born Jew, was a war correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper Red Star. His dispatches from the…
A Trip to Echo Spring, by Olivia Laing - review
The boozer’s life is one of low self-esteem and squalid self-denial. It was memorably evoked by Charles Jackson in his…
Nicolas Roeg interview: ‘I hate the term “sex scene”’
At 85, the film director Nicolas Roeg is pleased to see the critics catching up with him
